Hyundai Kona Electric SUV: Price expectations

Hyundai Kona Electric, which will mark the beginning of the company's electric vehicles offensive in India, will be launched here tomorrow.

Hyundai Kona Electric&nbsp

Hyundai Kona Electric SUV will be launched in India tomorrow, heralding the inception of the South Korean carmaker's electric vehicle charge here. While most details about the fully electric SUV are currently under the wraps, Hyundai has revealed a handful of compelling details about it in the lead-up to its market launch in the country. The most recent bit of information was the Hyundai Kona Electric SUV's driving range -- the company reavealed that the car offers an ARAI-certified driving range of 452 km on a full charge. Well that's all fine and dandy, but we know what most of the country wants to know -- 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric's price.

Well, we will have to wait another day to know for sure, but we can tell you that it the electric Hyundai Kona's price will range between ₹20 lakh and ₹25 lakh. Now, it would be fair to regard that as expensive, but consider this: the Kona EV will merely serve to exhibit Hyundai India's preparedness to introduce electric cars in the country.

Another crucial reason for the hefty price tag is the lack of any form of incentives on electric cars in India -- on the ones designated for personal use, to be precise. The ₹10,000 crore Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles II (FAME) scheme offers incentives to only electric vehicles used for either public transport or registered for commercial purposes. For private vehicles, FAME 2 offers incentives only on the purchase of electric two-wheelers.

As a matter of fact, Hyundai has expressed disappointment about the unavailability of FAME II incentives for electric cars for private buyers. Albert Biermann, head, Research and Development Division, Hyundai Motor Co., had said, "It would be a lot easier if private car customers also get some support to get into cleaner vehicles, especially in metropolitan cities."

And since electric cars for private use will remain expensive for the foreseaable future, it only makes sense that Hyundai chooses to focus on its larger electric mobility initiative in India -- as the carmaker had told us some time ago. Under the aegis of the aforementioned initiative, Hyundai will offer leasing services and associate with fleet owners and aggregators so as to help ease the ownership and maintainence of its electric cars. Hyundai explained this is because, of the lack of proper infrastructure necessary for the upkeep of electric cars.